The prospect of blackouts during a heatwave are not just inconvenient — they are a national disgrace in a first-world country like Australia.

But blackouts are what Sydney faces after years of closing cheap and reliable power stations.

Coal and gas, which sustain our lifestyle and underpin our prosperity, have been demonised by politicians for years.

No one should be surprised we are now in a mess.

It is the making of nine years of a Coalition government in Canberra that signed Australia up to net zero and state Liberal ministers like Matt Kean in NSW who closed perfectly good coal-fired power stations.

The mess is compounded by currently federal “energy” minister Chris “Blackout” Bowen, a moniker he richly deserves.

It’s not like no-one could see this coming.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) routinely warns every summer of the threat of blackouts – it’s just that the past few summers have been unseasonally cool.

Successive Coalition and Labor governments’ reckless “climate” policies have pushed Australia’s electricity grid to the brink, a looming crisis Family First has also warned of for years.

On Tuesday, AEMO sounded yet another alarm about grid strain, citing maintenance outages at major coal-fired power plants and surging demand.

Maintenance is a normal aspect of any engineering equipment and hot summers where people use air-conditioning is part of the Australian way of life.

In the past we planned for these things.

These days authorities expect us to engage is “demand management”, a euphemism for enduring blackouts.

AEMO has “issued updated Lack of Reserve notices, urging industry participants to respond to projected demand requirements in the coming days”.

How did Australia end up with a “lack of reserve” electricity? Look no further than the useless windmills capping country hillsides and the solar factories on prime agricultural land.

Sky News host Chris Kenny captured the public’s frustration: “A modern country needs to ensure it’s got enough power when it needs it, but these people want us to stop using electricity.”

Australians are being asked to electrify cars, stoves, and homes while being told to use less electricity.

This contradiction is the direct result of our politicians’ misguided net zero policies.

As Gerard Holland, CEO of the Page Research Centre, warned earlier this month in an interview with Lyle Shelton for ADH TV, “We’re going to see a huge gap in our capacity to provide baseload, steady 24-hour electricity… Renewables like wind and solar don’t follow demand.”

Holland’s grim assessment is coming true, as coal plants are prematurely shut down without reliable replacements.

“This graph could equally be titled ‘There Will Be Blackouts,’” he said, referring to Australia’s energy generation falling off a cliff.

The Albanese government’s target of 82% renewable energy by 2030 is driving this crisis.

Energy analyst Aidan Morrison explained the consequences: “Unless we re-invest in reliable energy sources that don’t depend on the weather, we should expect shortages and warnings around significant weather events to become more common.”

The folly of shutting down coal prematurely while ignoring nuclear energy as a viable alternative cannot be overstated.

As Holland pointed out, “Good social policy and good economic policy are intertwined.” Yet our leaders’ ideological obsession with renewables has put Australia on a path to higher costs, environmental degradation, and unreliable power.

Family First has been sounding the alarm for years. It’s time to abandon ideology and adopt energy policies that ensure affordability, reliability, and prosperity for Australians.

If net zero is important, the pathway should be through coal, gas and then to nuclear.

Vandalising the grid to the point of blackouts while electricity bills sky-rocket is sheer folly.

Despite Donald Trump declaring he will withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreements, both Liberal and Labor say they will keep Australia in.

We can’t stop the blackouts while put Paris before reliable power.

ACTION: Join the movement put people before Paris.  Join the Family First Party today.